


five steps to the fever pitch

by pearypie



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: (if you can even define them as such), 2CT reference, Dark Humor, F/M, First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Past Exploration, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 06:27:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13805379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: (vignettes of the five souls whose presence marked slivers in his pitch-black life)





	five steps to the fever pitch

**Author's Note:**

> i. Prey Nokor: set in the 17th century, before the increased Vietnamese settlement. (Hence, the Cambodian queen.) 
> 
> ii. Tanzaku: small pieces of paper that people write their wishes on during the Tanabata festive in Japan. 
> 
> ii. Milton: yes, Sebastian’s name in this epoch is John Milton XD 
> 
> iii. 1922: set during the Irish Civil War, fought between the National Army (who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty that would allow Ireland to become a self-governing dominion like Australia and Canada) and the Irish Republican Army, who fought for an independent Ireland. (Declan was part of the IRA faction who supported the revolutionary state.) 
> 
> iv. Yorkist princess: set during the now infamous Wars of the Roses fought between the houses of Lancaster and York following the weak and inept rule of the Lancastrian king, Henry VI.

i.

Blue moonlight spills on cold sand as frothing waves of shifting black crash against the shores of Prey Nokor. A backdrop of bustling market squares, lit up by faded yellow lights, glow in the far off distance, with voices and life echoing across the near empty beach.

Two figures stand by the darkened shoreline, salt and seawater mingling with the hazy scent of oriental poppies.

The Cambodian queen in ruby silk clings to him, fragile hands digging into the black satin of his nobleman’s robes.

“I love you,” she cries, crystalline tears running down pale cheeks. “Stay with me, _I love you—_ “

One gloved hand comes to cup her jaw, a smile of magnificent sympathy on a distant mouth. “Come my lady,” he coaxes ( _teases_ ), “come with me.” She is a tumultuous storm of emotion—unpredictable and selfish.

She intrigues and entertains and that is why he has allowed her this strange intimacy, this unfamiliar closeness.

And like the spring rain, she shifts course with capricious desire, leaning into him so his arms are full of her. “Don’t you love me?” She begs as the night wind carries the scent of her perfume out to sea. 

But instead of answering, he presses her close, allowing salty tears to stain his satin robes because he cannot—no matter how hard he tries—reign in his silent laughter.

 

* * *

 

ii.

The rocking-horse rhythm of the ship does little to soothe Sebastian’s inarticulate interest. It is why he is wandering the tar-caked deck, listening to the creaking of driftwood and the fluid pulse of the Caribbean Sea. Above him, swaying lanterns light the way but Sebastian puts out the yellow flames, knowing their ill-tempered captain, with his tobacco and limes, had little patience for those who could not follow orders. After all, is not difficult to see—not with his crimson eyes and a silver moon above.

It is only then (after the lights had been extinguished) that Sebastian senses him.

The boy with eyes the color of sea glass—a deckhand no older than sixteen but with all the fire and spirit of one who could conquer nations.

“You’re up rather late this evening aren’t you?” The demon’s voice slithers, coming to wrap around the boy’s waist and hold him close.

Against the wooden cargo and rough meters of rope, the boy jumps, startled. “Oh you scared me there, sir!” He laughs heartily, head thrown back as golden strands of hair slip from a ridiculous orange bandana. “Er—I didn’t wake you did I? I mean, I know I ain’t the quietest folk on board and you’ve got hearing that could put an owl to shame but…you didn’t _really_ hear me all the way below deck, didja?” He looks somewhat nervous (mostly curious) and is doing a shamefully poor job of trying to hide whatever documents he’s been hoarding.

A half-formed smile appears on Sebastian’s lips, one that is strange and all at once familiar. “Perhaps,” he holds out one gloved palm, “I’ll relinquish that bit of information if you share yours.” 

A heated red blush appears on the boy’s tanned skin. He is short—even for his young age—and peeks up at Sebastian through sun-gold lashes. “I’m gonna walk the plank for this, ain’t I?” He asks solemnly.

Sebastian says nothing, only observes the boy with his soft pink lips and lithe, quick limbs. How even now, standing still and silent, he radiates a warmth that calls to the demon with greater urgency than his own master’s soul.

“They—they ain’t nothin’ special.” The boy finally confesses, shamefaced and charmingly petulant. “I bought them too!” He adds, as if that were a line of defense that simply could not be penetrated.

It burns into the fine print of Sebastian’s existence—his constrained physical presence—and makes him want to reach out, to brush his fingertips against the boy’s smooth jaw, still soft with baby fat even with his whip-thin body.

Instead, Sebastian walks, with crow-black elegance, to the boy with eyes the color of sea glass. 

Bit by bit, the blonde raises his head—as if compelled by moonlight and the gravitas of this strange, lyrical man who suddenly appeared on their ship without warning, serving another more forgettable ruffian who he called “sire” and “master”.

“Er—sir? Mista Milton sir—“

They are standing a hair’s breadth away, the boy’s cheek to his chest, and when Sebastian bends down to taste his soft pink mouth, he is surprised by the force of the boy’s wiry arms as they come to wrap around his shoulders. Sebastian’s tongue traces the boy’s plump lower lip, hands moving to press the youth's small body against his own. Above them, the pale moon shines as Sebastian burns, lips pressing sharp-cut kisses down the curve of the boy's jaw, lingering at the blonde's still-thrumming pulse where he licks and sucks and tastes seawater and oranges. There Sebastian lingers, teeth and lips suckling soft flesh as the boy writhes against him, one arm coming to hold Sebastian close to him.

“I was hopin’ you’d do that.” He breathes brightly, wearing a smile so wide and earnest that Sebastian is taken aback by the intensity of it all.

Yet before the demon can question the boy’s strange choice of words, the blonde produces a slip of crumpled paper from his left pocket.

Sebastian’s eyes widen. 

_Tanzaku._

“Bought this while we were docked in Kyushu.” He admits shyly. “The old lady said you write wishes on it and—and if ya set it out on water, your wish comes true.”

The last part of his sentence is said in a rush—as if he were afraid this strange fever dream would break and dissipate. 

Sebastian’s mind is racing, jagged thoughts running into each other as he feels ice-cold mockery bubbling within him, ready to slice through flesh and lash out. _Foolish, insolent, naive_ ** _child_** _—_

He wants to say something, speak a few words of triumph and derision, but his teeth are sharp and they cut against his cruelty of his tongue.

So Sebastian suppresses this indescribable panic— _nothing more,_ he soothes, _than the madness of the moon_ —and demands three more kisses from the boy's soft, pliant mouth.

(And it does not even matter, he thinks dimly, when his sea glass eyes have ceased to shine—when his tan skin is pale as rice paper—and his warm gentle mouth has grown cold—)

 

* * *

 

iii.

Irish blood stains pale grey stone, marking the rock and green earth below him run with blood. Above is a mixed sky, dark and light with spring rain as he lies there, eyes fixed on the aether above.

Briefly, he wonders if his ma, bless her soul, will forgive him for this. He said he’d fight until the very breath was beaten out of him but here he is, still alive and breathing and unable to force himself to his feet. _I’m sorry ma,_ he thinks apologetically, _I promised you’d see freedom before summer’s end but here it is—August, and we’re no closer to freeing ourselves from the British yolk._

His eyes—the color of a faded sky—begin to close when distant footfalls force him to his knees. He’s taken multiple bullets through his torso, one to the thigh, and a bayonet through his left arm but—

He can fight, he can continue on.

Through sheer strength of will Declan Friel manages to drag his body (sticky with blood and filthy with dust) to a nearby oak. He settles himself, back against the tree, and digs a grenade from his breast coat pocket—

“Do you intend to obliterate or shoot me?” A voice, almost amused and cool like silk, interrupts.

Declan turns, disbelief in his young face when he sees a tall pale man dressed all in black.

His eyes are two violet stars and his mouth is a smile that has no meaning.

“You’re not a Nationalist are you?” His Irish cadence, while not unfamiliar to Sebastian, sounds more like a lullaby than a question.

“No,” the dark-haired man confirms. “I’ve no interest in the affairs of man.”

Declan continues to look at him. “You…seem familiar,” he manages, with some great difficulty as it becomes harder and more difficult to draw breath. His chest aches and his arms feel leaden. 

“Perhaps you’ve seen me,” the man says, neither confirming nor denying the Irishman's statement. “You are familiar with Lord Chatach?”

At that, Declan feels his heart set aflame. 

“Aye,” he nods, deciding that if he was going to meet the Almighty he might as well give a full honest confession. “Nearly broke my heart when he sided with the Nationalists—can’t blame him though. An independent Ireland would’ve been hell for business.” He chuckles ruefully, giving a shake of his head.

The soft milk skin, the faded blue eyes, the light blonde curls—

(Had he been dressed in white, Sebastian thinks, he would have passed for angelic.) 

“You are fond of him?” He continues blandly. 

“Oh aye.” Declan leans his head against the tree. “I climbed a fucking rose trellis to see him once—nearly fell flat on my arse but I couldn’t even mind. I just about love him.”

“Then you might be able to provide me with a bit of assistance,” Sebastian gives a slight bow, eyes glittering. “The IRA possess a stash of guns great enough to change the tide of this war—" 

“If you’re asking me to betray my country then I’m sorry,” the blonde smiles, “I can’t.”

The dark-haired man's expression is...not quite upset, Declan notes. 

Just...mildly curious.

“You would allow the death and ruination of so many out of pride? Mr. Friel, I can assure you,” he smiles as the wind picks up, “no landmass will offer you absolution for the deaths of these citizens.” 

“And no one will make right my sin of selfishness.” He swallows. “I love him,"  _god knows he loves him,_  "but I love my country more.”

“Then you are of no use to me.” He concludes, the mask of human courtesy vanishing from his ice-bone veneer. "Godspeed, Mr. Friel." A slight half-smile curves on his bloodless mouth, giving Declan one last look at the ebony-haired man before the grey mist came and enveloped him whole. 

(For a long while after, he will wonder why he did not consume the boy’s soul. Why he had turned and walked away when the child was so close to death—he does not think it is because Declan Friel’s eyes mirror that of another child’s, a past forgotten contract. A watchdog and aristocrat who had looked at him with those same haunting eyes. It does not matter, he thinks at last.) 

The year, after all, is 1922.

 

* * *

 

iv.

She is a Yorkist princess, a white rose against splashes of slate grey stone and flickering shadow. She is sly and cold and oh so cruel.

Her name, the demon knows, will be lost to time. She is everything a prince ought to be yet in this world, with its spires and feuding factions, there is no place for a woman such as she.

“You are a curious thing,” the princess acknowledges one stormy night, a red velvet sheath slipping from her body, bite marks red against her pale thighs. “You speak with the manner of a noble yet you choose to submit. Why?”

“Perhaps dominance is not everything.” He allows, a silk robe across his shoulders as he works at the writing desk. “Perhaps submission could yield worthier results than a clash between two immobile objects.” He adjusts the tallow candle, allowing more light to be shed on his parchment and quill.

She smiles, viper-eyed, ready to strike. “For a man so virile I find it amusing to think you might have once been in the skin of a woman.”

A glint of white appears when he smiles, canines sharp and bright. “Perhaps.” He turns to her, dark hair falling against crimson eyes, “but even if I were of the fairer sex I would have been drawn to you still.” 

“Drawn to me? Does this mean you are not, as all my suitors say, hopelessly in love with me? Ready to play the silver knight? Save me from the guarding dragon near?”

“I’ve no use for such fantasies, your highness. If you were to have such a creature as your guard and I, by some measure of extraordinary talent, were to slay it—you would sooner have my head on a platter than my name in marriage. Why trade a beast of such power for a knight of low stature?”

“You think little of yourself, sir?” She lies on her side, full breasts tinted gold by the firelight, hips rounded and sweet as she rests one lily-white forearm against herself. 

Her lips are too red to be alluring but it inspires a base desire in him—an appetite for conquest.

It is not his fault, he thinks, that he has grown so reckless.

 

* * *

 

v.

His young master has given him the name that he now uses with such frequency that it has, by some supernatural effect, become a part of him. An insignificant, negligible part but a part nonetheless.

He has never made a contract with one so young—one so small and frail with limbs made of glass. He is delicate and wanting and utterly infuriating. The demon in him does not know why he complies, why he stretches his mortal form to its limit when he could eradicate the whole lot of them with just a fraction of his true demonic power.

He supposes it’s the boy’s soul—such a tender, wanton thing. So full of mixed desire, grim repose, and sticky, tar-black guilt. The scent is cloying—almost filthy—but Sebastian is drawn to it for the simple fact that few children, even in the age of heroes and blood feuds, could have summoned the hatred necessary to call him forth. Most, whether boy or man, can curse those around them with exceptional ease—could even hate if they allowed themselves to—but few allowed themselves to fall into selfish despair so great and so potent that it made the demons below salivate.

It is almost funny, he thinks, how he must play at deception when the earl cannot be so easily fooled—not like the Cambodian queen who smelled of poppy flowers and night sky. He is less hopeful and more perceptive than the boy with sea glass eyes. His master is not so inclined to favor him, as did the Yorkist princess.

There is no intimacy in their touches because when they are together the butler cannot help but think his master is like the morning mist, pale and transparent, ever out of reach. It is easy to prod and provoke him to ill-temper, even easier still to remind him of his common human emotion, but he finds it strange—so strange—that he would choose to live a life of falsehood, carrying a dead boy’s name and breathing life into a porcelain corpse.

It is Sebastian who teaches the earl how to kiss, allowing fragile lips to meet his own, careful not to cut into the child's petal pink mouth.

“For a demon,” his young charge remarks, “that was rather chaste.”

“I hardly expect you to kiss your betrothed in such a lascivious manner in public, my lord.” Sebastian returns smilingly, white gloved hands on the earl’s shoulders. “You must tempt her with something sweet—a promise of another kiss to follow.”

He furrows his brows, sapphire eyes narrowing, carefully cataloging this bit of information and nodding. “I see. The kiss of promise.”

He quirks his brow. "A rather curious way of phrasing but yes, that is indeed so.”

“What happens now?”

Sebastian leans in again, one hand coming to cup the boy’s angel-pale cheek. “The kiss of confession.”

A wry smile tugs at the sapphire earl’s lips. “Confession? Are we to go to a church and pray thereafter? Shall I order you to fetch my catechism? I still remember some of the holy scriptures—“

“That is unnecessary,” Sebastian interrupts.

He refuses to allow another insolent word to leave the brat’s lips before his mouth is on his, warm and fervid as he nips his master’s lower lip, amused and satisfied when the boy gasps, one hand fisting the lapel of Sebastian’s jacket. Yet it will not do, the butler thinks, to end such a kiss so quickly. Rather, he draws it out, allowing the earl’s bird-thin chest to heave with exertion because the little noble, as cold as he might seem, attacks Sebastian’s mouth right back with his blunt milk teeth. Sucking and scraping his butler's cool lips, tasting and wondering, head tilted to one side as he deepens the kiss, wanting to explore, ever curious—

His little hands are unable to remain still, coming to brush against ink-black hair ( _does he think me intangible?_ The butler laughs silently), to palm at the sharp angle of his servant's jaw, to see if this human skin did indeed make him  _mortal._

“That is quite enough, young master,” Sebastian breathes, his breath smelling of winter plums and fine red wine. “You are now edging into the third kiss, the kiss of desire.”

“Desire?” The earl’s mouth is swollen. Swollen and flushed, a delicate shade of pomegranate. “How should I execute such a kiss?”

“You will not.” He replies simply. “At least—not in a setting like this.” The earl frowns. “The third kiss is a kiss for the marriage bed,” Sebastian explains, laughter threatening to overtake him when the earl’s face blooms crimson.

“I see.” He clears his throat. “Well—then. That will be all for this afternoon.”

“Of course.” He bows and turns to depart. After such strenuous exercise, his young lord will no doubt be wanting his tea.

 

But now, against the evening crest of time, it is almost amusing to look back on his former master, to hear his jeweled voice echoing in the cavernous dark.

Sebastian’s mouth brushed against the earl’s, now 23 and blue and beautiful, ready to consume his pound of flesh when the earl chuckled, hands against the demon’s shoulders. “How quaint,” sapphire eyes glittered, “to think my soul will be stolen by a kiss of promise.”

 

(Chaste lips brushed together and Sebastian kissed the milk of his fingertips.)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Feedback welcomed.


End file.
